Congratulations to Opera! How Daniel Goldman, a Technical Evangelist at Opera Software,
wrote in
a blog entry, an internal Beta build of Opera 9 for Windows Mobile recently
passed the
Acid2 test. And therefore, Opera Mobile is on pace to become the first Windows Mobile
browser to pass the Acid2 test.
The Acid2 test has been written to help browser vendors make sure their products
correctly support features that are part of web standards.

The upcoming Opera 9 Mobile edition will include the latest PC browsing
features such as Widgets and Intelligent Zoom (made popular by the Wii
Opera-powered browser) and Opera Software said, that its Opera 9 Mobile will add
completely new dimensions to navigation. You will be able to seamlessly
alternate between viewing modes to get a birds-eye perspective or dive into the
page's content.
Opera Widgets are small web applications that run outside of the browser and are
instantly accessible on the phone without having to launch the Web browser (now
I wonder even more what's the status of
Microsoft's Windows Vista
Gadgets for Windows Mobile is). Opera Widgets are based on the same
technologies used to create web pages - HTML, CSS, JavaScript (and AJAX) - so
you could easily create a weather, traffic, news or E-Mail widget that gets its
data by using AJAX, for example.

The most recent version of Opera for Windows Mobile is in public beta as
Opera Mobile 8.65 (Opera 9 Mobile.0 isn't available yet) and expires June 1st.
The browser is available for Windows Mobile 2003, Windows Mobile 5.0 and Windows
Mobile 6 Smartphones (aka Windows Mobile Standard smartphones) and Pocket PCs
(aka Windows Mobile Classic and Professional PDAs and smartphones).

The final price of Opera Mobile 8.65 isn't announced yet. Also it's not clear
if Opera Mobile 8.65 customers can upgrade later free of charge - or for a
reduced price - to Opera 9 Mobile.